The Week in Cleantech – Sept 24 – 30

An exciting week in cleantech wrapped up the third quarter last week, with several companies raising private capital and several interesting partnerships formed.

Fisker Automotive, which speculated as recently as August about completing an initial public offering in 2013, raised $103 million in a private growth equity round from existing investors. It is the third round of growth equity funding the company has raised in 2012 amid recalls of its first model, the Karma, and struggles to secure the right CEO.

Tesla, another maker of electrified vehicles but already a public one, announced it would seek to raise up to $221 million in a third public offering of its shares. The company has struggled to generate demand for its high-end EVs, while also having difficulty meeting production quotas for those customers who have pre-reserved vehicles.

Several cleantech startups raised Seed or Series A rounds during the week. Brisbane Materials, an Australian company developing advanced coating materials for the solar PV industry among others, raised $5.2 million from New Venture Partners and Southern Cross Venture Partners. Other companies raising early stage equity during the week (For brevity’s sake, I’ll list the company along with its (sector), and (deal amount)) included MicroPower Global (Energy Efficiency), ($351,000); VCharge (Smart Grid), ($770,000); and Utilight (Solar), ($4.5 million).

In an interesting partnership for the Smart Grid sector, Silver Spring Networks and eMeter announced they would work together to integrate eMeter’s EnergyIP platform with Silver Spring’s UtilityIQ system for interoperability. The companies had initially partnered back in 2008, when Silver Spring joined eMeter’s ‘IntegratedMDM’ program.